


Some Guardian Angels Have Missing Parts - Postscript

by hufflepirate



Series: Some Guardian Angels Have Missing Parts [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Gen, Healing, Late Night Conversations, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:05:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4989550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In honor of Some Guardian Angels Have Missing Parts hitting 1000 kudos, a one-shot about Sam and Bucky readjusting to life after the events of that fic.</p><p>When Sam wakes up in the middle of the night, his first instinct is to check on the kids.  The only problem is that there are no kids - the Avengers are their old selves, and Sam's having trouble letting go of responsibility for them, even though he knows better.  Luckily (or unluckily, maybe) he's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Guardian Angels Have Missing Parts - Postscript

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to Some Guardian Angels Have Missing Parts (http://archiveofourown.org/works/2137623/chapters/4669020)
> 
> Thank you guys so much for all the love for the original fic!

Sam's first thought, upon waking up in the middle of the night, was that he ought to go check on the kids. His second thought was that there weren't any, anymore.  The Avengers were all grown up again.

He lay there in the dark, trying to sort through his feelings about the whole thing.  It was a relief, obviously, that it was over.  He wasn't even sure he missed it, because being responsible for 6 small children and a very dangerous man with PTSD had been so stressful at every moment that it had felt like a weight was lifted off of him when they all grew back to their usual age.

But he couldn't quite shake the feeling of responsibility, and that made him feel like a lot of other things were shaky, too.

You couldn't let yourself feel too responsible for other people in his lines of work.

When he flew Pararescue, he had to be responsible for soldiers' lives while they were in his care, but he couldn't be responsible when full-scale medical facilities still couldn't save them. He couldn't be responsible when they were too far gone to save by the time he arrived.  He couldn't be responsible for the bullets that had already hit them, the bombs that had already blown up around them, the natural, unstoppable beating of their hearts that drove the blood from their bodies, sometimes faster than he could keep it in.  He had to do his best, he _always_ did his best, but he couldn't be responsible when his best just wasn't enough.

Now that he counseled veterans, he couldn't be responsible for them once they walked out his door.  He could try his best to say the right things, to give them the right tools, to hear all the things they were trying to communicate, even when they didn't quite come out right, but he couldn't be responsible for them. He couldn't be responsible for their healing, or their choices, or the things that happened to them to dredge up bad memories. 

It was like what his dad always said about pastoral care: you could tell somebody all the right Bible verses and love them and support them and encourage them, but you couldn't reach into their hearts or their minds or their souls and straighten things out for them, even if you wished you could.  You couldn't invite Jesus in for them.  You couldn't wash away their sin or wipe away their shame or soothe their hurt feelings, not really, not in the ways that counted.  You had to wait and let the Lord do it for you.  Or for them.  Or for himself. Sam was never totally clear on that last point, which was why he mostly focused on helping people do those things for themselves.  Or letting time do it.

But he knew it had been good advice, when he was trying to figure out how to counsel without hurting himself in the process, and he knew it had been good advice for his sister, the teacher, and for all the many brand new fresh-from-school assistant pastors his dad had trained over the years.

It was a delicate balance, being responsible-but-not-responsible, being called to serve someone but unable to control them, being able to help someone but not to fix them. And he'd finally gotten it down again, in the new situation of counseling, with its new boundaries and expectations and realities.

But somehow this was different. Somehow the lingering sense of responsibility just kept lingering, even when it shouldn't, and even though he'd thought he knew by now how to make it go away.

With a groan, he got up out of bed, grabbing his keys off the bedside table.  He needed some fresh night air to clear his head.

He rode the elevator up to the roof, gliding silently past the quiet apartments where the Avengers were sleeping, adults who didn't need to be looked in on, anymore, to make sure they were ok.

Bucky Barnes was sitting at the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the edge.  He was wearing pajama bottoms with his undershirt, which was a surprise. When they'd all been in Sam's little house together, Bucky had borrowed a pair of jeans and slept in them. It was good to see he was starting to get comfortable, finally.

The lights of the city around them glinted off of Bucky's arm as he turned to watch Sam coming toward him. Sam raised his hands up in front of himself, so Bucky could see he was unarmed.  The Howling Commando wasn't as volatile as he used to be, anymore. But he wasn't whole yet, either, and he wouldn't be for a long time, because that just wasn't how it worked. Healing took time, and Bucky hadn't had that much of it, even if it felt like a whole different lifetime for Sam, when he looked back on the time before he'd met Steve and Nat and the Bucky that had been on the other side.

He sat down next to the old soldier. "Couldn't sleep?"

Bucky shrugged.  "Dunno."

Sam nodded.  Sometimes Bucky had trouble processing his own emotions.  Sometimes Bucky had trouble processing _everything_ , though the more his memories came back, the less that seemed to be true.  Either way, Sam could wait it out.

After a few comfortable minutes of silence, Bucky offered, "S'not so much I can't sleep as I'm not used to it, I think. I'm not used to not having things to do."

Sam nodded.  He knew that feeling.  "I was that way when I got back from my last tour.  Before I was working at the VA.  It's amazing how fast it can make you feel empty."

Bucky looked at him for a moment, studying his face. "Don't feel empty. I used to feel empty. It's something else."

Sometimes Bucky's voice sounded like all the things that had happened to him, like they'd risen to the surface somehow. A shiver ran down Sam's spine. "Well, maybe that's true," Sam said, "But it definitely makes you feel _something_."

Bucky nodded.  "Yeah."  Then a moment later, he added, " _What_ , exactly?"

Sam was proud of him for asking, but he didn't want to show it, yet.  Bucky's rehabilitation was a long-term project that, like his worries about the Avengers, he technically wasn't responsible for.  It was still nice to see that the man was still trying to work out what his emotions were and what they meant, even as it kept being hard. It was nice to think he might be able to feel like everyone else did, after all these years.

Sam shrugged.  "I dunno.  Melancholy, maybe. Malaise.  If we were bored aristocrats, it would be ennui. It's just that feeling you get when you've been doing something big, and suddenly it's over. Like you've got too many limbs and you don't know what to do with yourself."

"Mm."  Bucky sounded convinced.  "You think Steve feels that way too, being here after," he waved his human hand nebulously, "everything?"

Sam laughed.  "I think Steve runs from that feeling like it's a wild animal out to get him. Sometimes literally. You know, I met him on a morning run."

Bucky shook his head, "Nah. Wasn't following him, yet."

They settled into silence again, because Sam wasn't sure what to say to that and Bucky never seemed overly bothered by silence anyway, at least not when it was just the two of them.

"S'it silly," Bucky asked, suddenly, "To want to come up here and protect them?"

There was a lot left out of that question, Sam thought, but he was pretty sure he understood it, just the same. "Probably not," he answered, "Old habits, and all.  I'm glad to be on the bottom floor, sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night.  It makes me feel like a barrier keeping folks out from the rest of you.  Not that they need our protection, per se."

"I know they're not kids anymore." Bucky said it like a straightforward declarative sentence, but it was 3 am, and time was going fuzzy, like it always does in the middle of the night, and Sam recognized it as something else. A platitude.  A question.

"No reason we can't look after 'em anyway," he answered, "Howling Angel."

Bucky snorted, an almost-laugh, and about as good as you ever got out of him, "Don't remind me.  Still think that name's dumb."

"You hated it less than 'Guardian Angel."'

"Still do."

"Even at 3 am?"

"Maybe."

"They don't need us anymore. They're fine."

This time, Bucky picked up Sam's cue. "They do. You, anyway.  Emotional support or... whatever."

"I'm not their therapist."

"You're not mine, either."

"True," Sam answered, half rising, even though he didn't really intend to go. "Maybe I should go back inside."

Bucky reached out across his body with his metal arm and grabbed Sam's wrist.  "Nah. Help me keep watch. Can't be a guardian angel without my wings."

Sam laughed, "The wings are downstairs where they belong."

"I don't think anyone's actually going to attack the tower.  I wouldn't have. Not without orders, anyway."

"No."

They grew silent again.

This time, Sam broke it.  "Any time I wake up in the middle of the night like this, I just want to poke my head in and make sure they're sleeping soundly. But I couldn't, even if I wanted to."

"I could get in, if I wanted. But it seems wrong. But sometimes I ask JARVIS instead, anyway. Just to make sure Steve's still... whatever he is now.  Breathing, anyway. And just to make sure everybody's alright."

"And?"

"Computer's a liar.  He always says they're fine, but I know Nat has nightmares. Maybe the others, too. That time thing really messed with them. They're all a little more like me, now. Everything gets sort of jumbled and has to fall back into place, and then you get all the awful dreams of all the awful things you ever did, and it's all suddenly so _recent_.  But maybe they didn't do so much that was awful."

Sam tucked his legs up to his chest. "Some of 'em did. There's a reason Bruce almost Hulked out in his sleep last week, I think.  And there were probably other times when JARVIS didn't think he was close enough to going off to put us on alert."

Bucky grunted in agreement.

"The others are fine," JARVIS supplied, from a speaker to their left.

Sam started, "Hey, man, you can't go scaring folks who are sitting at the edge of a 20-story drop."

"An Iron Man suit would catch you, if you fell," the computer system replied, "Mr. Stark has put several of them at my own disposal, since he started rebuilding."

Sam snorted.  Of course he had.

"They really fine, JARVIS? Or are you just trying to make us feel better?" Bucky asked.

"The others are fine," JARVIS answered.

Sam laughed.  "That's intentionally cagey, JARV.  And you know it."

"The others are fine."

Bucky glanced over at Sam and, as if taking Sam's fond eye roll as permission, snorted with a sudden burst of amusement. "Tricky bastard," he said, glancing sideways at the speaker.

"If you must know," JARVIS answered, sounding vaguely hurt, "Three of them have had nightmares tonight, but it used to be all of them, and most of them do not have nightmares _every_ night anymore, so as a whole they are doing much better.  Mr. Stark has been this way before.  He will come out of it."

"Oughta put them in group therapy," Sam muttered to himself.

"Are you volunteering, Mr. Wilson?" JARVIS could sound awfully petulant for a machine sometimes.

"Oh, hell no.  They need a psychiatrist for that, not a counselor.  And anyway, professional distance.  You don't treat your friends."

"Do I need a psychiatrist?" Bucky asked, a moment of vulnerability cropping up out of the blue.  Sam was maybe, _maybe_ starting to get used to these moments, always unexpected.

"We can get you one if you want, man. Might not be bad. You could vet one, right, JARVIS?"

"Mr. Stark is currently ignoring a long list of highly qualified psychiatrists, Sir."

"I'll think about it." Bucky said, staring off into the empty air over the city.

Sam wasn't sure how he felt about that. It was one less responsibility he'd been meaning to shed - _trying_ to shed, really.  But it always was hard to let go of responsibility.  Harder than it should be.  Even so... "Could be good.  Might get the others to go, too, just 'cause they know you already are."

Bucky snorted again, "You preying on my protective instinct, Wilson? 

Sam grinned, "'Course not. That would go against _my_ protective instinct."

Bucky grinned, a half smirk, "Gonna have to make you start going, too.  Stop you feeling bad when they get hurt.  They will, you know.  There's not a lot I know, but that's one of the things.  Can't protect 'em now that they're big.  Steve, maybe.  But not all of them. 'S too much work for one person, now that they're too big to hide away."

Sam sighed, "Too much work for two. I try not to think about it too much."

"The others are fine," JARVIS said. He actually seemed to be trying to comfort this time, an edge Sam hadn't been able to define gone from his electronic voice.

"Yeah, I guess they are. And when they're not, we'll deal with it," Sam answered.

"When they're not, I have all major emergency personnel in the city on speed dial.  And several psychiatrists."  The computerized voice said it matter-of-factly, but then after a moment added, more quietly "Don't tell Mr. Stark."

"You worry too, huh, JARVIS?" Bucky asked, with the particular softness creeping into his voice that always came when he was trying to process other people's emotions.  There was something at once tentative and affectionate about it, and Sam was always reminded of the way even the most timid of the kids had taken to Bucky, even when he'd been less... _Bucky_.

"I don't know what you mean, Sir. I'm a computer."

"Sure you are," said Bucky. "All programming. Just like me."

"You're not a computer." JARVIS said it before Sam could get the words out.

Bucky grinned, as if he'd caught the computer in a trap, "I know."

Sam laughed, as JARVIS stayed pointedly silent in response.  "Are you really always watching, JARV?"

"It's my job, Sir."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."  The mechanical voice was too crisp for slang, even not-really-slang like 'yeah.'  It was still a good answer, and one that made something in his stomach, tight since he woke up and wondered if the kids were alright, relax, unknotting itself.

Bucky seemed to sense Sam relaxing, even though he was pretty sure he hadn't actually moved.  He nudged him with his human elbow.  "Hear that, Wilson?  Guess we can go back to sleep."

Sam snorted softly, acknowledging the half-joke even as he appreciated the other man's articulation of the feeling that had come with JARVIS's words.  "Guess so."

They didn't.  Not for another 98 seconds.  Then they both got up at once, not quite talking about any of it.

"See you in the morning, Buck," he offered vaguely.

"You too, Sam," the man answered.

They got on the elevator, headed down in silence, and got off one floor after another, back to their lonely apartments, holding one tenant each.  If Sam could hear the echoing clangs of Bucky propping his stairway door open on the floor above, he didn't feel like he needed to pay it any mind.

In the dark, an electronic mind whirred through the tower, flicking from one camera to another, watching all 8 of the Avengers, all the affection it couldn't feel pulsing through its network of wires and cables and cloud-stored nowhere space.

Sam tried again to abdicate responsibility. He almost even managed it. He fell back asleep.


End file.
